The talk was attended by almost all members of the HAZU despite announcements that it might be boycotted.
Mesic underlined, among other things, that the future of the modern Croatian state lay in democracy, respect for human rights, the rule of law and the adoption and application of European standards.
Commenting on his controversial speech in Australia in 1992, Mesic said that at that time, being a member of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party, he had been in the service of war propaganda and that he had allowed to be used in unilateral interpretations of history.
He stressed that his present views substantially differed from those he had advocated more than ten years ago.
"I clearly denounced Ustasha ideology just as I denounce it today," Mesic said, referring to the racist ideology of the Nazi puppet regime that ruled Croatia in the Second World War.
The talk was scheduled this spring and not, as organisers have said, so that President Mesic could explain his speech in Australia.